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With the introduction of controlled environment agriculture, indoor grow rooms, and vertical farming, more industrial and commercial growers are choosing to build indoor environments for their crops, rather than outdoor ones.
Commercial grow room design and installation services can help your business integrate new technology to support your crops and prepare your business for the future of your industry.
Optimizing your commercial and industrial indoor growing spaces takes a considerable amount of expertise and usually requires a partnership between your company and an industrial construction and design firm.
Premier agricultural design and building firms can help you select materials, install indoor and outdoor structural elements, and integrate more technology into your greenhouse or grow room so that automating your growing and harvesting efforts is easier than ever.
In this article, we’ll look at a few of the ways you can transform your indoor growing environment and discuss the types of product you may want to consider installing before you begin.
First, you’ll need to select an indoor space for growing, whether it’s a greenhouse or grow room. But in order for this space to support your plants, you’ll need to consider everything from your grow lights to your flooring materials.
Wall Panels and Structuring
After selecting an indoor space for your crops, you’ll need to think about what the structure of this space will look like, from the walls to ceiling and floors.
Insulated metal wall panels are typically a good product for commercial and industrial growers, regardless of crop type. They offer a solid, insulated foundation for your indoor growing space that improves the energy efficiency of the other systems you’ll need to install, including temperature and humidity control technology.
Insulated metal panels, which are commonly referred to as IMPs, are also ideal for cleaning, in that they are minimally affected by the high humidity and temperatures of the space.
Lighting Installation
The way your grow room is lit can make or break your indoor growing and harvesting process. Most spaces will need supplementary light fixtures, though the color spectrum or light type will vary depending on the crop and its current phase in the growth cycle.
HPS, or High Pressure Sodium lights, are a popular choice for many plant types, including marajuana. LED lights offer incredible efficiency for growers, but their color spectrum doesn’t carry the same variability as HPS.
Depending on the setup, some growers will still choose to work with fluorescent bulbs.
The effectiveness of your grow room lights depends on how well they can disperse light equally throughout the space, along with their ability to supplement any natural light that the space receives. In addition to your lighting, you may also need to think about blackout curtains and other light deprivation options.
Integrate Temperature and Humidity Control Systems
Controlling the temperature and humidity of your indoor growing space can be exceptionally tricky without a dedicated regulatory system.
Thankfully, commercial and industrial growers can now rely on automated technology to manage this aspect of their greenhouse and grow room.
CEA (controlled environment agriculture) systems can also optimize other key metrics, such as PH level and soil moisture levels. In short, installing a temperature and humidity control system for your space is a must.
Consider Adding Rolling Benches
Rolling benches allow commercial growers to make the most of their square footage by removing the need for lanes between each section of a greenhouse or grow room’s plants.
Rolling benches are typically built with stainless steel or metals, but are sometimes constructed with high-resilience plastic instead. The placement of rolling benches within the space also makes it easier to align each row of plants with your overhead grow lights.
Install Epoxy Floors
Epoxy flooring is the gold standard for many commercial and industrial spaces, and for good reason. This high-resistance coating is both water and stain proof, which means it’s easier than ever to clean up your space.
Unlike other flooring solutions, the humidity and water levels within the space will not cause any cracks. The smooth finish of the surface also makes it easier than ever to move rolling benches.
Not only is epoxy flooring the optimal solution for a greenhouse or grow room, but it’s also reasonably priced as well.
Evaluate Airflow and Exchange
If the air within your indoor growing space becomes too stale, your plants will find it difficult to get the nutrients they need to stay healthy.
With so many plants packed into a single space, you’ll need to make sure you’re removing the released oxygen regularly, and adding back CO2 instead.
Large fans and ventilation piping is usually the best option for both greenhouses and grow rooms, because it also helps to keep the humidity level of the space in check as well.
Test Your Space’s Climate Before Planting
Following the construction of your new indoor growing space, it’s usually a good idea to start small and test the effectiveness of your new climate control systems before you plant on a larger scale.
While this might seem like a simple step, it can take a considerable amount of time. However, failing to ensure that everything is working properly before beginning a new cycle of crops can cost your business a considerable amount of money.
Conclusion- How to Create an Optimal Indoor Commercial Growing Space
While setting up a new indoor growing space might seem like an expensive, challenging process at first, it can provide incredible value for your operations in the long run.
To ensure this space is properly assembled, many businesses and agricultural managers choose to work with an experienced greenhouse and grow room construction company.
These building and design partners can connect you with the best construction materials, manage contractors on your project, and optimize the efficiency of your new space.
